a recent surf-magazine interview with vinent langer might contain valuable information regarding the 2026 north pwa race sail lineup.
www.surf-magazin.de/en/windsurfing/scene-and-events/scene-out-of-the-niche-interview-with-north-sails-category-manager-vincent-langer/

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ptsf1111 said..
Same, I like my Blades but if there was a considerably better sail without a premium price that lasts, I'd consider it. Let's see where North are heading, hopefully everyone can just share honest reviews rather than promos though.

To be totally honest, last August I had both the North 3Di[/b] and the Severne S-1 Pro carbon fusion[/b] in my van, and choosing which one to rig was a real 'luxury problem.' They are absolutely on the same elite level. The S-1 Pro is an incredible piece of engineering, super light, big range of use, is made for competition. I was using the 4.4 S1 pro carbon fusion.
I've been in love with the S-1 Pro for years, but the North Wave has captured my heart recently. It's really a matter of personal preference when you're surfing or just planing. My partner made a clearer choice toward Severne; she finds the center of effort more central and easier to manage. Personally, I'm loving the North right now I really like that feeling of a light but effective forward drive. It's just a matter of taste in how you feel the power. On both sets of sails, we use the original Severne (blu and red) and North masts, extensions, and booms to keep the specs right. As for boards, my girlfriend is literally in love with the Pyro 78 [/b]it's her absolute favorite. So as you can see, we aren't brand-biased; we just use what we love. I'm just curious to see if Gen 3 takes that 'forward drive' feeling I like to the next level.

I also wanted to apologize to everyone for my tone earlier. Please put it down to my huge passion and the fact that my English isn't perfect....;
In the end, all these carbon sail brands have pushed the bar so high that we are all winners.

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Manawa said..

ptsf1111 said..
Same, I like my Blades but if there was a considerably better sail without a premium price that lasts, I'd consider it. Let's see where North are heading, hopefully everyone can just share honest reviews rather than promos though.

To be totally honest, last August I had both the North 3Di[/b] and the Severne S-1 Pro carbon fusion[/b] in my van, and choosing which one to rig was a real 'luxury problem.' They are absolutely on the same elite level. The S-1 Pro is an incredible piece of engineering, super light, big range of use, is made for competition. I was using the 4.4 S1 pro carbon fusion.
I've been in love with the S-1 Pro for years, but the North Wave has captured my heart recently. It's really a matter of personal preference when you're surfing or just planing. My partner made a clearer choice toward Severne; she finds the center of effort more central and easier to manage. Personally, I'm loving the North right now I really like that feeling of a light but effective forward drive. It's just a matter of taste in how you feel the power. On both sets of sails, we use the original Severne (blu and red) and North masts, extensions, and booms to keep the specs right. As for boards, my girlfriend is literally in love with the Pyro 78 [/b]it's her absolute favorite. So as you can see, we aren't brand-biased; we just use what we love. I'm just curious to see if Gen 3 takes that 'forward drive' feeling I like to the next level.

I also wanted to apologize to everyone for my tone earlier. Please put it down to my huge passion and the fact that my English isn't perfect....;
In the end, all these carbon sail brands have pushed the bar so high that we are all winners.

Great post. I was reading it thinking .. mate you gotta try the simmer team carbon.. lol

Looks like the Amado news is official now. This looks like a mostly stitched together sail though, no 3D stuff? (from his Insta)

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ptsf1111 said..
Looks like the Amado news is official now. This looks like a mostly stitched together sail though, no 3D stuff? (from his Insta)

Scary speed for a foil! But no surprise that it is not 3D. For non-yacht-size sails 3D, not to mention inflatable cams, is a gimmick. After three years on the market it has proven good only to try to sell sails at three times the cost of stitched ones. NOT the way to try to revitalize windsurfing.

Two things:

-North Sails has hired Alex Udin to work with Bijl on sail design, who's (was...?) the owner/designer of Phantom. You can clearly see that influence in this proto, which is almost a carbon copy of last year's Phantom foil sail but with different colors (and obviously logo). Langer in his interview earlier already hinted at more affordability and less niche...

-Amado was testing with Pierre in the south of France (Port Camargue) and they switched fin and foil gear; the speeds recorded in the app appear to be on fin, not foil.

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bel29 said..
Two things:
-Amado was testing with Pierre in the south of France (Port Camargue) and they switched fin and foil gear; the speeds recorded in the app appear to be on fin, not foil.

ah! that would explain it!

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bel29 said..
Two things:

-North Sails has hired Alex Udin to work with Bijl on sail design, who's (was...?) the owner/designer of Phantom. You can clearly see that influence in this proto, which is almost a carbon copy of last year's Phantom foil sail but with different colors (and obviously logo). Langer in his interview earlier already hinted at more affordability and less niche...

-Amado was testing with Pierre in the south of France (Port Camargue) and they switched fin and foil gear; the speeds recorded in the app appear to be on fin, not foil.

Thanks for the info, I was wondering why it looked like Phantom sails

French team training at Almanarre:

Another possibility, could be related to the R&D cycle. Developing a new 3Di mold is a massive and time-consuming industrial process. It's possible that North is using these traditional monofilm prototypes as 'live templates.' This would allow designers and athletes to cut, sew, and tweak the geometry like luff curves and draft positions in real-time. Once they've potentially found the winning shape in film, they can then 'freeze' that data into the final 3Di production molds.

Monofilm is back? Well I am going to confort myself with a massive plate of spaghetti or steaming bowl of cappelletti in brodo + 36 month aged muntain of real Parmigiano Reggiano and a good glass of wine.....

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Manawa said..
Another possibility, could be related to the R&D cycle. Developing a new 3Di mold is a massive and time-consuming industrial process. It's possible that North is using these traditional monofilm prototypes as 'live templates.' This would allow designers and athletes to cut, sew, and tweak the geometry like luff curves and draft positions in real-time. Once they've potentially found the winning shape in film, they can then 'freeze' that data into the final 3Di production molds.

Monofilm is back? Well I am going to confort myself with a massive plate of spaghetti or steaming bowl of cappelletti in brodo + 36 month aged muntain of real Parmigiano Reggiano and a good glass of wine.....

This was my take also.. It's easier to proto and cheaper. from what has been publicised they will continue selling the stitched sails and will look to do the 3di in custom amounts.

think it was Monty Spindler that said sails need to be able to be set flat and shaped. that could be the crux of the issue here. the 3di sails don't have that ability

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Gestalt said..

Manawa said..
Another possibility, could be related to the R&D cycle. Developing a new 3Di mold is a massive and time-consuming industrial process. It's possible that North is using these traditional monofilm prototypes as 'live templates.' This would allow designers and athletes to cut, sew, and tweak the geometry like luff curves and draft positions in real-time. Once they've potentially found the winning shape in film, they can then 'freeze' that data into the final 3Di production molds.

Monofilm is back? Well I am going to confort myself with a massive plate of spaghetti or steaming bowl of cappelletti in brodo + 36 month aged muntain of real Parmigiano Reggiano and a good glass of wine.....

This was my take also.. It's easier to proto and cheaper. from what has been publicised they will continue selling the stitched sails and will look to do the 3di in custom amounts.

think it was Monty Spindler that said sails need to be able to be set flat and shaped. that could be the crux of the issue here. the 3di sails don't have that ability

I think if just cloning a mylar sail with the 3di process worked in any way they would have cracked the code a couple of years ago.
The 3di materials seem to respond in a different way and it's not going to be an option to just copy a great working stitched sail.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

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Freeflight said..

Gestalt said..

Manawa said..
Another possibility, could be related to the R&D cycle. Developing a new 3Di mold is a massive and time-consuming industrial process. It's possible that North is using these traditional monofilm prototypes as 'live templates.' This would allow designers and athletes to cut, sew, and tweak the geometry like luff curves and draft positions in real-time. Once they've potentially found the winning shape in film, they can then 'freeze' that data into the final 3Di production molds.

Monofilm is back? Well I am going to confort myself with a massive plate of spaghetti or steaming bowl of cappelletti in brodo + 36 month aged muntain of real Parmigiano Reggiano and a good glass of wine.....

This was my take also.. It's easier to proto and cheaper. from what has been publicised they will continue selling the stitched sails and will look to do the 3di in custom amounts.

think it was Monty Spindler that said sails need to be able to be set flat and shaped. that could be the crux of the issue here. the 3di sails don't have that ability

I think if just cloning a mylar sail with the 3di process worked in any way they would have cracked the code a couple of years ago.
The 3di materials seem to respond in a different way and it's not going to be an option to just copy a great working stitched sail.

You may be right about that. I'm not sure. Hard to know where they started with the 3di sails. From scratch or an existing shape. Guess it wasn't a duotone..

bringing onboard the phantom guys brings working shapes and a design philosophy to the table. Pretty much anything can be scanned these days. I guess time will tell.

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ptsf1111 said..
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

Lots of carbon fiber cloth options for stitched sails now

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Gestalt said..

ptsf1111 said..
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

Lots of carbon fiber cloth options for stitched sails now

Not to mention the stichless Q-bond technology point-7.com/zero-26/qbondsails/ ... but let's face it: all this can only save grams, not Kgs like North used to claim.

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duzzi said..

Gestalt said..

ptsf1111 said..
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

Lots of carbon fiber cloth options for stitched sails now

Not to mention the stichless Q-bond technology point-7.com/zero-26/qbondsails/ ... but let's face it: all this can only save grams, not Kgs like North used to claim.

Severne pioneered this stuff, lightweight carbon cloths, glued seems. They've been doing it for multiple years now.. point 7 missed the boat for me.

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Gestalt said..

duzzi said..

Gestalt said..

ptsf1111 said..
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

Lots of carbon fiber cloth options for stitched sails now

Not to mention the stichless Q-bond technology point-7.com/zero-26/qbondsails/ ... but let's face it: all this can only save grams, not Kgs like North used to claim.

Severne pioneered this stuff, lightweight carbon cloths, glued seems. They've been doing it for multiple years now.. point 7 missed the boat for me.

They really did not Pioneer it. They were just who you saw doing it.
I had my first spectra laminate sail in 1988, around the same time my friend had a mostly stitchless glued sail. My first carbon laminate slalom sail I can't quite remember the year , I think it was about 2002 era, I had a new sonic 100 at the same time, so that year. My standard 4.6 4 batten sail in 1988 was 2.2kg, made from polyester and kevlar scrim laminates. I had a Twaron scrim laminate 8.2m slalom sail that was under 3kg , around 1997. My 7.0 6 batten cammed slalom sail from 1995 in technora scrim laminates was 2.9kg. not sure what year severne started making sails?
So basically scrim laminate tech is more than 40 years old, highly developed and well understood by those who have been using it a long time.
The north stuff is good too, and the membrane and the film less sailcloths in rolled form. They can all be used to make good sails. But 100percent truth is none are clearly dominant over another, it's all about the design implementation. Hell even monofilm can be good, it's just so damn cheap! 10 euro for a sails worth of cloth instead of 100.....

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sheddweller said..

Gestalt said..

duzzi said..

Gestalt said..

ptsf1111 said..
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for this 3Di construction in windsurfing sails, let's see what happens next.

Lots of carbon fiber cloth options for stitched sails now

Not to mention the stichless Q-bond technology point-7.com/zero-26/qbondsails/ ... but let's face it: all this can only save grams, not Kgs like North used to claim.

Severne pioneered this stuff, lightweight carbon cloths, glued seems. They've been doing it for multiple years now.. point 7 missed the boat for me.

They really did not Pioneer it. They were just who you saw doing it.
I had my first spectra laminate sail in 1988, around the same time my friend had a mostly stitchless glued sail. My first carbon laminate slalom sail I can't quite remember the year , I think it was about 2002 era, I had a new sonic 100 at the same time, so that year. My standard 4.6 4 batten sail in 1988 was 2.2kg, made from polyester and kevlar scrim laminates. I had a Twaron scrim laminate 8.2m slalom sail that was under 3kg , around 1997. My 7.0 6 batten cammed slalom sail from 1995 in technora scrim laminates was 2.9kg. not sure what year severne started making sails?
So basically scrim laminate tech is more than 40 years old, highly developed and well understood by those who have been using it a long time.
The north stuff is good too, and the membrane and the film less sailcloths in rolled form. They can all be used to make good sails. But 100percent truth is none are clearly dominant over another, it's all about the design implementation. Hell even monofilm can be good, it's just so damn cheap! 10 euro for a sails worth of cloth instead of 100.....

Totally agree.

I should have been clearer. I meant scaled up production and implementation.

i hope north get their 3di working. my take is they just need more time.

More time, probably but who's going to fund that... I guess someone's managing budgets and this one might not survive much longer. That is purely a guess fwiw.

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ptsf1111 said..
More time, probably but who's going to fund that... I guess someone's managing budgets and this one might not survive much longer. That is purely a guess fwiw.

this does feel like it has sense of finality.

I am not seeing a lot of 3di sails being promoted in insta posts from Amado or Pierre since joining North. In saying that PWA season opener is a fair way off so they still have time

North is going to develop a parallel line of 'traditional' stitched sails alongside the 3Di.
It's a smart move it keeps the brand accessible while they continue to solve the engineering puzzles of the membrane sails that we were just discussing. In short: 3Di will remain the high-end performance line. we will see...